Nurture Change declarations needed - Press Council
The Press Council has upheld Tom Frewen’s complaint about a series of articles run in the Sunday Star-Times and on Stuff from June 18 and July 30 2017 introducing prominent speakers at this year’s Nurture Change Business Retreat in Fiji. They offered the chance for readers to win flights and one of four ‘‘scholarships’’ to attend the event.
The articles are written by Zac de Silva, a business coach, ‘‘long-time columnist of the Sunday StarTimes’’ and the co-founder of the Nurture Change event.
Complaint
Mr Frewen complains under Principle 10 ‘Conflicts of Interest’ and says that the content displayed on the Business pages as news stories is anything but. ‘‘They should have been clearly marked ‘‘advertising’’, ‘‘advertorial’’ or ‘‘sponsored content’’.’’
Frewen argued the series ‘‘has no discernible news value and does nothing to enhance the newspaper’s claim to having an independent editorial stance’’ given that the author of the articles about the Nurture Change retreat is one of three directors of Nurture Change Ltd.
The conflict of interests aren’t declared in the first, third or fourth articles. In the second, the paper has included a photo of de Silva and Steve Pirie, captioning them as ‘‘Nurture Change founders’’. In the others, readers would be unaware of the commercial interest the bylined author has in the event. Yet, Frewen says, ‘‘clearly the purpose of publishing these articles is the promotion of a commercial enterprise’’.
He concludes: ‘‘The newspaper’s contribution seems to be a relaxation of the usual journalistic standards of sceptical inquiry in pursuit of objective truth to allow the company to promote the supposed educational benefits of its retreat.’’
Response
The Sunday Star-Times defends the series, saying de Silva has had a relationship with the Star-Times for three years ‘‘with regards to the annual competition’’ and ‘‘the commercial/competition relationship [is made] clear at the end’’ of the articles, with a declaration that the two companies were offering the prize.
A separate reply to the Council, however, denies any commercial arrangement between Nurture Change and the Star-Times, but rather describes the relationships as ‘‘an entirely non-commercial media partnership’’.
‘‘The Sunday Star-Times is not being paid to write the articles. Indeed, we retain complete editorial control over the content of the articles’’. Neither are they sponsored content, because ‘‘advertorials and sponsored content require sign-off from a client. This is not the case for the Nurture Change series.’’
While at least six articles were published, the caption disclosing de Silva and Pirie’s connection to the event ran in three of them.
While the Star-Times run the competition, it ‘‘has not bought, or in any way owns, the tickets provided for the scholarships. There is therefore no pecuniary advantage to Fairfax Media from the arrangement. But it had edited the pages so that the relationship would be ‘‘more clearly disclosed’’.
Decision
Principle 10 states that newspapers must be independent of their sources to be good watchdogs and where a story is enabled by gift, sponsorship or financial inducement, it should be declared. Any link the author has to the story should also be declared.
The Sunday Star-Times has roundly failed to fulfill this principle and to uphold the highest professional standards as per our Principles preamble.
Each article is displayed as a news story, but contains no declaration of the author’s interest in promoting the event from which he is profiting. All ‘‘declarations’’ except one are merely an invitation to enter a competition.
It should go without saying that offering a partial declaration on some, but not all, of the articles in a series falls below the standards required.
The Star-Times has not helped its case with the internal contradictions on the relationship between Fairfax and Nurture Change, with one response claiming ‘‘an entirely noncommercial media partnership’’, and the other acknowledging a ‘‘commercial/competition relationship’’. Clearly a transaction of sorts occurred here.
Undoubtedly, and despite their display as news stories, de Silva has written the articles predominantly to promote a commercial event from which he will profit. As such, the author’s conflicts of interest should have been declared on every piece, or, in line with standard practice, the person profiting from an event should not be commissioned to write about it.
The articles amount to nothing more than advertorial or sponsored content and should have been declared as such. To claim otherwise is to undermine the paper’s independence and lacks credibility.
The Council is also concerned that the complainant’s emails were lost because Fairfax left its complaints email ‘‘unattended’’ for some weeks. That is not acceptable, but we are encouraged to learn that ‘‘steps have been taken to ensure that all mailboxes are properly monitored’’.
The complaint against Principle 10 is upheld. This is a brief version of the Press Council ruling. The full Press Council decision is at www.presscouncil.org.nz.